One morning in late 2009, Jennifer Whelan, diagnosed
with MS in 2002, rushed to get
her twin girls, Allison Grace and
Amanda Faith, ready for daycare
before starting the 30-mile commute to her job in the financial
industry.

Whelan’s everyday schedule
is enough to keep her busy, but
with the holidays coming, she
had to shop and cook, too. “At
the end of the day, I came home
loaded with extra work and
Christmas presents,” Whelan,
37, said. “Even before I was able
to stash the presents away, my
kids started yelling for attention.
I wanted to explode! Luckily,
my husband saw my face, and
maneuvered me out of the kids’
room. ‘I can tell that switch is
going to go off,’ he said. ‘Maybe
it’s time you took a rest.’ ”

EDWARD KOREN/ WWW.CARTOONBANK.COM

Stress+MS=not a good comboWhen the holidays roll around,sometimes all is not merry. Forinstance, too many holiday-related tasksmay makepeople thinkthey’ll neverget everythingdone. That inturn makesthem thinkthat they areinadequate, and they becomefrustrated and angry, sometimesto the point of sleepless nights.

Stress starts in theenvironment butcan lead people tofeel helpless abouteverything.

director for the Center for Tech-nology and Social Behavior atNorthwestern University, whichstudies stress and MS. “On topof that, MS is most often diag-nosed when people are in their20s and 30s—when potentiallystressful life events such as mar-riages, new jobs and children arehappening.”Few people—with MS ornot—can sail through plan-ning a wedding or starting a jobwithout a little anxiety. But theeffects of stress on people withMS are of continuing concernto clinicians. A recent studypublished in the May 31, 2011,issue of Neurology indicatesthat stress does not cause MS.